|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|
|
Also this issue: Rodeo Drive Icepack |
|
|
|
|
 |
|||||||||
August 22-28, 2002
naked city
 Photo By: Michael T. Regan |
|
When construction company Jeffrey M. Brown Associates purchased the National Building, a warehouse at 108 Arch St. and the Lithographic Service Co. at 205 Race St., the Fringe Festival had no idea how good a friend they had made in the East Coast skyscraping giant. All three spots have been lent to Fringe 2002 for the simple price of taking out the trash. A lot of trash. 205 Race -- the new home to Fringe’s combo box office/ cabaret/bar, The Hub -- had four mega-Dumpsters of garbage to toss.
The Hub -- a cavernous space that'll also house an outdoor performance stage and trailer park portable potties -- will be Fringe Central for the masses to enter (through garage doors), congregate cabaret-style, watch Camera Obscura's ongoing video installations, buy tix and booze up with the beer that Fergie of Fergie's Pub'll sell by the tub.
Lighting and scenic designer Mark O'Maley, best known for Rennie Harris and Headlong Dance Theater stuff, visualized the box office as an alive, funky enterprise of "found objects" (antique upside-down table lamps suspended in mid-air, atomic light fixtures, second-floor rope lights) and primary colors (tubs of reject paint bought for $53 from Home Depot). "The only thing is we had no idea what the colors were so when I got to painting, it was sort of like Christmas," says O'Maley, who covered every wall, steel beam and door in different colors of red, orange and mint.
Barrymore-winning designer Jorge Cousineau (lots of Pig Iron stuff, Arden shows and work with Paule Turner's Court) is more methodical. Like O'Maley, working with nearly no budget made Cousineau (who's done the cabarets since 1997) think from a scrap-heap aesthetic. The royal blue and charcoal fabric-laden saloon will feature, along with a bar and a standard setup of high-backed chairs and cocktail tables, a night-sky-scape of cut-glass mirrors shaped like stars and constellations. The same starry-night sky is carried into the cabaret area. This room -- dotted with tchotchkes like TV-audience applause signs -- is made up of risers and banquettes facing an impressively wide stage area surrounded on both sides by four dressing rooms and a pulley system that allows film/video screens to cross the stage. "I wanted to create constant change -- a feel of reflecting and traveling," says Cousineau, who, along with O'Maley, has given The Hub swiftness and subtlety to match the Fringe aesthetic.
Now drink up.
The Hub, 205 Race St., 215-413-1318
 |
-- Respond to this article in our Forums -- click to jump there |
